


you and i and all our younger lives

by sesquidpedalian



Series: solanaceae [3]
Category: Dr. STONE (Anime)
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Banter, Crushes, Families of Choice, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Late Night Conversations, Minor Injuries, Missing Scene, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, implied alcohol consumption, kohaku and chrome have adopted each other you can't change my mind, set during episode 17
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-02
Updated: 2020-06-02
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:41:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24483712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sesquidpedalian/pseuds/sesquidpedalian
Summary: “Hold still.”“Iamholding still.”“Not when you’re talking you're not!”
Relationships: Chrome & Kohaku (Dr. STONE), Chrome/Ruri (Dr. STONE)
Series: solanaceae [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1743325
Comments: 4
Kudos: 17





	you and i and all our younger lives

**Author's Note:**

> set smack in the middle of episode 17 because our poor boy chrome deserves a break
> 
> title inspired by Firebird by Owl City

The firelight casts dancing shadows on everyone’s faces. The night air is filled with drunken laughter and children shouting. Chrome sits in front of one of the fires, holding a half-full bowl of wine, aching.

He hears behind him, in low voices, a conversation:

“They won’t attack again tonight.”

“Good thing too. Doesn’t look like the villagers plan on stopping any time soon.”

“It’s a tradition to have a feast after the Grand Bout. There’s no way around it. And they’ll probably need the morale, after that attack.”

“That’s true.” A sigh like a wind storm through new leaves. “The guards—”

“I’ll see what I can do about Ginro. Kinro, on the other hand...”

“Kinro will be fine.”

“Somehow I doubt it.”

“He’ll be fine! Good as new in the morning.”

“Uh-huh…” 

The excitement of the past few days is wearing out, leaving Chrome to remember with painful clarity that he made a lens out of his _own tears_ , and then spent a day hopped up on adrenaline and desperation, sprinting through the creation of the cure-all drug. Damn. Just the thought of turning around is enough to make his ribs hurt. 

He has to strain to hear over the crackle of the fire though, so he gets to his feet and limps his aching way over to Senku and Kohaku.

“Hey, Chrome.” Kohaku steps into his path and offers a hand. Chrome grabs onto it gratefully. He takes a steadying breath, straightens up, lets go. She hands him a meat skewer. Senku moves too, and their little circle is complete. 

Senku gives Chrome that wonderfully manic grin that promises pain and terror and a challenge sweeter than any wine. Chrome can’t help the smile that splits his face in response. “What’s next, Senku?”

“Ah, don’t bother with the tough-guy act. You took a real beating for us.” Senku’s smile, unnerving at the best of times, widens into something sharp and amused as he turns away to look over the village. With mock-seriousness, he intones, “Your sacrifice is one billion percent appreciated.”

“I swear, how do you make everything sound creepy,” Kohaku grumbles. Gesturing at Chrome, she continues, “You should go sit down and get some rest. Only the gods know what Senku is going to put us through in the morning.”

“Can’t wait!” Chrome chirps. He does not sit down, and is rewarded for this with a long-suffering eye roll from Kohaku and a cackle from Senku. Chrome tears a chunk of meat off the skewer and chews it carefully.

“There’s medicine and things in your hut, right? Let's go. I’ll help dress your wounds.” Kohaku casts a wary look in Senku’s direction that is half question and half warning.

Senku only laughs. “I’d go with you guys, but I don’t think they’re going to let their new chief leave the village just yet.” He eyes the villagers with no small amount of apprehension. “Ah. Here we go.”

A few of the villagers are stumbling their way over, waving jugs of wine and sloshing over-filled bowls in what could generously be called Senku’s direction. “Hey, chief! Why aren’t you celebrating with us? Come on!”

They converge on him in a well-meaning mound of good cheer. Senku’s expression is mildly constipated as he’s dragged away.

“Good luck,” Kohaku calls sweetly after him.

“You’re heartless, Kohaku,” Chrome says, taking the opportunity to devour the remainder of the meat she gave him. She swats him right on a bruise and Chrome yelps.

“He’ll be fine.” She waves her hand in a remarkably Senku-like gesture of dismissiveness and Chrome snorts.

Kohaku grabs some food for herself, bites into it. She leads the way through the crowd, weaving easily between groups of laughing, chattering villagers. The warmth and chaos of it is comforting, familiar despite how long it’s been since everyone was together enjoying themselves like this. 

The festivities leave a pleasant warmth on Chrome’s skin, which just makes it all the more chilly when the two of them step past the last circle of firelight and into the woods. Every village kid knows these trees, grew up with the undergrowth’s steady nighttime noises and learned to climb before walk. He and Kohaku know each leaf as well as they know their own hands, but the shadows of the place get awfully dark at night, until it’s nearly impossible to see an arm’s length ahead of you. Kohaku pulls out her knives and keeps them steady at her sides the rest of the way to his hut.

When they arrive, Kohaku scales the ladder in the blink of an eye. She calls down to Chrome, “You’re so slow. No wonder you and Senku get along so well; you’re both like _tortoises_.”

Chrome makes a face that she can't see, preoccupied as she is shoving the door open. “Not everyone can be a super-powered gorilla, you know! Senku and I are science-users, and we’re plenty fast at that.”

She leans down, grabs his arm—thankfully misses the bruises this time—and yanks him up in record time. “Why am I helping you again?”

Chrome grins, opens his mouth— 

“No, never mind, don’t answer that.”

Once properly inside, Chrome staggers over to the table to light a candle. By the time he sits down by the wall of the hut and tugs his shirt off, Kohaku has pilfered a few medicinal plants from his collection, and apparently discovered the pot of water Chrome keeps stashed under a shelf.

He points at one of the jars, tucked in the shadows by the far wall. “There’s ginger in there. And the bandages are on that shelf, next to the blue corundum.”

“I know, I see it.” She brings the supplies over and sits. “Hold still.”

“I _am_ holding still,” Chrome protests.

“Not when you’re talking you're not!” Despite her sharp tone, Kohaku doesn’t falter in her preparations for even a second, laying out bandages and preparing poultices with the ease of familiarity. She gets to work, cleaning and dressing and wrapping.

The comfortable feeling from before settles back into Chrome’s bones. The light in the hut is warm and flickering, the night peaceful outside the open door. He finds himself hit by a wave of nostalgia, leans a little more against the wall. Kohaku’s hands are hot and dry and calloused.

Eventually, Kohaku speaks into the silence, a few shades softer than usual. “Of all the people who could marry my sister, I’m glad it’s going to be you.”

It takes Chrome longer than it should to realize he’s gaping.

“What,” she says, looking up from her work and making a dour face. “You have nothing to say? You _do_ want to marry her, don’t you?”

“Uh, well, I mean, I guess—” 

Kohaku guides him to sit upright, forces him to shuffle until his back is to her, then starts slathering something deliciously cool on Chrome’s skin. “You guess,” she echoes flatly.

“I— _Yeah_. It’s just, you make it sound like it’s going to happen for sure and I don’t even know if she _likes_ me, and how do I know if _I_ like _her_ , y’know, in a marrying kind of way?”

Kohaku flicks Chrome lightly on the shoulder, except, because it’s Kohaku, it hurts as bad as if a regular person had punched him. Chrome makes an indignant noise.

“You idiot. You _just_ said you wanted to marry her. I think that means you definitely like her—” she drops her voice an octave or two in what is probably supposed to be a crappy imitation of Chrome’s voice “—‘in a marrying kind of way.’ Even _Senku_ thinks it’s obvious you two are madly in love with each other.” 

“Well, what about _Ruri_? Doesn’t she get a say in this?”

“Chrome, you do not want to know the number of times she asked me if I thought you were cute when we were little.”

“Woah woah woah, wait, she did _what_?”

“She wasn’t priestess yet.” Kohaku’s hands pause. “Fewer responsibilities. Less pressure. We could gossip like little kids. When we talked about getting married, she only ever wanted to talk about you.”

Chrome can’t think of a single thing to say to that, but he feels his face heating up.

“Remember when you gave her that little bouquet of flowers with this one gemstone wrapped up in the middle? She loved it. She tried so hard to keep those flowers alive for as long as she could.” 

“Oh. Sh-She did?” It’s definitely not a good thing that this whole conversation is making Chrome feel so weird and...fluttery? Is that the word? _Fluttery_?

“I’m pretty sure she put them in a bottle of wine at one point. Obviously they died, and then she was _inconsolable_. Cried for _days_. Kept going on and on about how she ‘destroyed Chrome’s wonderful gift for me’ and how ‘he’s going to hate me forever’ and ‘who am I going to marry now?’” Kohaku snorts. “I’d say it was cute, if it wasn’t so ridiculous.” 

Chrome’s face is still hot enough to catch fire. “You’re kidding, right? There’s no way she would be like that! Ruri’s way too…” He makes a wide gesture to indicate everything Ruri is, far too much for him to put into words. There is an unimpressed silence behind him. “Argh, you know what I mean!”

Chrome hears a rustle of fabric that is probably Kohaku shrugging. “We were practically babies back then.”

“Well then what if she doesn’t like me anymore? What if it was just some dumb childhood crush?” Chrome asks, voice getting louder despite himself. “She could have the pick of the village!” He crosses his arms, which makes Kohaku shove him and grumble something about relaxing. “Hell, she was married to _Senku_ for a while.” He’s not quite sure why this last part is relevant.

There is an exasperated huff of breath on Chrome’s back. “They were officially married for about five minutes, Chrome. Gods, you’re so…” Kohaku ties off a bandage with ruthless efficiency instead of finishing the sentence. He can practically see her shaking her head in that stupid ‘I’m-more-mature-and-cooler-than-you’ way of hers.

“I’m so what?” Chrome demands when she’s done, twisting around to glare at her. “Ow,” he adds when his body reminds him why he’s here in the first place.

“So _clueless_. How can you be so good at science and such a kid at the same time?”

“I’m _not_ —” Something draws him up short. “Wait, you think I’m good at science?” Before he can get started with that line of merciless teasing, Kohaku interrupts.

“Good enough to get banished for it.” 

Her rueful expression echoes a thousand conversations just like this. A thousand nights spent talking for the sake of talking, under a tree or glowing in firelight or up in the branches watching the stars from the forest canopy. _We were too good for them, so they cast us out,_ they used to joke. _My sorcery, your fighting skills—we’ll show ‘em,_ Chrome would say. Kohaku would smile and ruffle his hair, and the long nights would grow impossibly short. The memory makes something complicated twinge in Chrome’s chest.

“Man,” Chrome says, tilting his head back. He reaches up, closes his fist on nothing but air. “I’m not good enough yet. I gotta keep working! I’m gonna be as good a science-user as Senku someday. We’ll bring back modern civilization together, and then we’ll be able to fly and have light whenever we want and go all the way above the sky and no one’s gonna have to worry about food ever again and we’ll be able to cure anyone that gets sick and—” 

Kohaku dumps a clean shirt in Chrome’s lap. “Put that on. I have no idea how you’re going to manage all that, but focus on recovering first. You’re not going to help anyone the way you are right now.”

Chrome sticks his tongue out at her, the effect somewhat diminished by the fact that he immediately sticks his arm through the wrong shirt-hole and has to struggle for a moment to get unstuck. Kohaku scrunches her nose right back at him, before getting up and perching in the doorway so she can dangle her legs outside. 

“Tsukasa’s army could be back tomorrow.” Kohaku-the-friend slips away, Kohaku-the-warrior taking her place effortlessly. She stares at the distant fires of the village. “Let’s go back and enjoy the celebration for tonight. Tomorrow we need to be ready to fight.”

The dark focus in her eyes is more than Chrome wants to deal with right now. “We’ll be fine,” he says, because words hold power and even Senku knows that and really, how could they _not_ be fine? Him and Kohaku and Ruri and Senku and all the rest of the village, how could they ever not be fine when they’re all together, unstoppable and brilliant?

“Trust me, Kohaku. Tomorrow is gonna be _awesome_.”


End file.
